Citing multiple sources, Kotaku reports today that BioWare Austin’s episodic online role-playing game Shadow Realms, which was announced in August for a release in 2015, may have been rebooted and now might not launch until 2017.
Two sources told Kotaku that Shadow Realms was canceled outright, while a third tipster, described as “reliable,” said the game was not scrapped, but rather significantly overhauled in late October 2014. That’s around the time that BioWare delayed the game’s closed alpha test.
According to this source, Shadow Realms will now have a full campaign. The insider went on to say that Shadow Realms is now, at least tentatively, scheduled to launch in 2017 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. The game was officially announced only for PC, but BioWare Austin general manager Jeff Hickman said Shadow Realms could come to console if fans demanded it.
Kotaku also obtained a photo of an internal EA database that shows that Shadow Realm’s online servers were recently switched off. BioWare Austin has kept quiet about the game recently, though community manager Eric Musco did make clear on Reddit last month that Shadow Realms is “absolutely not canceled.”
Shadow Realms was reportedly rebooted so that the team could integrate EA’s online service Origin into it. Multiple people with knowledge of the matter told Kotaku that EA gives teams using internal technology and services more budget, boosting the likelihood of a game to succeed.
The new version of Shadow Realms, according to Kotaku, does use Origin, and thus BioWare Austin has been given a bigger budget to expand and improve the game.
EA did not respond to Kotaku’s request for comment. As of press time, EA also had not gotten back to GameSpot about this report. We’ll have more details on Shadow Realms’ development as they become available.
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